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I heard some more shocking news. School teachers are quitting their careers because they don't feel safe in the classrooms and they have no way to control unruly students who disrupt classes. Educators are too close and don't see an obvious answer. The problem started in the seventies, with the law that forbids corporal punishment in classrooms. It's a good law, but they haven't incorporated alternative means of discipline. Kids in upper grades now do whatever nasty things they please and get rewarded by feelings of power and peer admiration. Schools get sued for using ordinary discipline.

Schools should set up disciplinary panels of at least three staff members, before which unruly students appear and are required to write and present an acceptable speech relating to why in a free society, we have rules that everyone must follow. It needs to happen in a timely fashion such that offending students are removed from classrooms immediately. As it is now, kids enjoy in-house detention because they get away from regular classes, teachers and annoying students. If they have to personally perform an educational task until they actually succeed, at least they'll graduate with ability to read, write and appear conscientious.

John Scatchard

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